Marco Odermatt arrived to symmetry in Beaver Creek, Colorado, for World Cup ski racing from Dec. 6-8.
Odermatt, 27, went into that three-race weekend with 37 career victories on the circuit.
If he swept the Beaver Creek downhill, super-G and giant slalom, Odermatt would match the Swiss men’s record of 40 career Alpine skiing World Cup wins. It’s a mark held by Pirmin Zurbriggen since he retired at age 27 in 1990.
Not only that, Odermatt celebrated in Beaver Creek the fifth anniversary of his first World Cup victory at the same Birds of Prey venue on Dec. 6, 2019.
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Plus the 25th anniversary of his first time on skis at age 2 years, 2 months in Klewenalp, near Lake Lucerne in Central Switzerland on Dec. 8, 1999. (As noted by ski journalists Laurent Morel in his Odermatt biography and Eric Willemsen on social media).
There was a Swiss sweep of the three Beaver Creek races — Odermatt’s super-G triumph was sandwiched by the first career World Cup wins for Justin Murisier (in his 187th World Cup start) and Thomas Tumler (in his 124th start).
Odermatt was plenty pleased. He posed for a shirtless celebratory photo with Murisier and tagged a post congratulating Tumler with #Buddy and #WhatATeam.
Odermatt tied and broke Zurbriggen’s record two weeks later and is now up to 44 career victories. The only man to win more times on the circuit by such a young age was Ingemar Stenmark, the Swede who racked up a men’s record 86 titles in the 1970s and ‘80s between giant slalom and slalom.
Odermatt has won seven times this season -- most by any man or woman -- going into the World Championships in Saalbach, Austria. For the second consecutive season, he leads the World Cup standings in the overall, the downhill, the super-G and the GS.
Already an Olympic GS champion and a world champion in the downhill and GS, he can become the second man to win three individual golds at one worlds in the last 57 years after American Ted Ligety in 2013.
All this for somebody whom Morel summarized in his book’s preface as going “from an almost ordinary childhood to a destiny as a legend in Swiss sport,” according to a translation.
Almost ordinary. Odermatt’s father, Walter, has significant experience in the ski industry. He gleaned in-person advice from Zurbriggen in the early 2000s and documented his son’s skiing in an Excel spreadsheet, Swiss media has reported.
Young Marco kept individual statistics by hand of his Alpine idols while watching World Cup races on TV. He had posters in his bedroom of greats Didier Cuche and Ligety, according to Blick, and one of a lion.
“Lions have always fascinated me because this animal symbolizes a great deal of strength and courage,” said Odermatt.
Near Odermatt’s hometown, the Löwendenkmal (Lion of Lucerne) is carved into a sandstone cliff face, commemorating Swiss guards who died while defending the Tuileries in Paris during the French Revolution in 1792. It’s believed to be unrelated to Odermatt’s fascination with the animal.
He put artwork of a lion’s head on his race helmet, along with an eagle-and-heart patch honoring Gian Luca Barandun (“Bari”), a Swiss skier who died in 2018 at age 24 after a paragliding accident.
At age 14, Odermatt went to Italy for the Trofeo Topolino, a major youth ski event. He placed 12th in a two-run slalom, 6.17 seconds behind the winner.
Odermatt was ninth and 16th the following year in the Trofeo Topolino slalom and GS.
The season after that, he raced in the Swiss Junior Championships at age 16. He placed 20th in the giant slalom and 29th in the super-G and was the youngest to finish in the top 40 of both events.
“When I was at the age maybe 14, 15, 16, I was never good at the important races,” Odermatt said on a podcast with sponsor Red Bull. “Always at the point where you really have to perform, I couldn’t do it. With that, it was a process, I would say. With every situation you learn. With every race you get more experience. You know what works, what didn’t work.”
By age 17, he started winning regularly. At 18, he was the youngest man to place in the 20 of the 2016 World Junior Championships giant slalom. He won it, actually. Only one man finished within a second of him.
The real breakout came at the following World Junior Championships in 2018 on home snow in Davos. Odermatt became the first skier to win four individual races at a single junior worlds.
Then in 2019, he earned his maiden World Cup victory in Beaver Creek — the youngest man to win a World Cup speed race over the last 30 years — and was off and running against the world’s best.
In addition to his ski exploits, Odermatt has appeared in at least two commercials with Roger Federer. Odermatt has in a way succeeded the retired Federer, winning the last four Swiss Sportsman of the Year awards (a record streak for a man or woman, though Federer won seven total).
Uncle and godfather Paul is president of Odermatt’s traveling fan club, which started in 2017 and grew to more than 3,000 members from 20 countries, according to Swiss media.
One can join for 30 Swiss francs (or free if under 16 years old). It’s all on Odermatt’s website, which also includes an A-to-Z section to get to know him.
For the letter J, he once referenced those 2018 World Junior Championships.
“Yesterday’s successes count for nothing today,” it read, “but they are a great motivation for my future steps.”
